


The Two Names of a Man

by TCMisthearrow



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Gen, Minor Bruce Banner/Betty Ross, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3707043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TCMisthearrow/pseuds/TCMisthearrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since he’d let the other guy run him as far out as this, Bruce had been convinced he’d shaken off his tail. But now he’d grown another one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Two Names of a Man

Once, Bruce had read a short story set in a place like this and now he really understood it. The far-off peaks were his only impairment to a clear view of the sky, far from any light pollution, and there was a calm silence about his person, stretching down into the valley, all the way across it to other, more distant settlements. _It was Clarke_ , remembered Bruce. _A good one_. 

Bruce wasn’t alone on the mountain, he knew, but for the first time in many months this thought did not trouble him. He was confident - and had been for some time - that none of the expected problems would be troubling him for the foreseeable future. Not so long as he remained here, calm, undistracted, unfazed. Not so long as no-one interrupted him.

He knew, of course, that someone would, perhaps sooner than he’d like, perhaps several months from now, in another part of the country, or even the world. Perhaps he was wrong about that and no-one would catch up to him. He saw no reason that, provided he stayed in this spot, on this parapet, gazing up from just one valley on this gently curving plant at the infinite sky, anyone would ever come to find him, he being careful and restrained and not, as far as he could see, any immediate threat to anyone. The lamasery was remote, but that was not why he had come here, not exclusively, and its occupants understanding, but that was not why he had come here either. He had actually come here alone, properly alone: his pursuer had not appeared in more-than-weeks, and here was a place he could safely expect never to hear of him, or have anyone catch sight of him, for a long time. _Maybe forever_ , thought Bruce wistfully, noting the rotation of the constellations from how they’d been in his youth, and how they’d been just a few years ago when he had gazed at this same eternal canvas in contemplating his newfound lot in a suddenly much more fragile world.

A faint tinkling began behind him, and he looked back at the main building, which was not the largest of its type, but that suited him fine. He could see faces at windows, gazing out at the valley from the whitewashed walls, but none of the faces seemed to be watching him, or if they were, there was no fear in their eyes, only distant curiosity tempered by years of restraint. That too was a change. He followed the gaze of one monk out down the mountainside, over several smaller buildings’ tiled roofs, towards a small path that was the only sensible route to and from the lamasery. Every four days, a tall man led a herd of yaks up that path, carrying anything the isolated residents had need of, but the man had come yesterday, so no watchful eye would have expected to see a figure on the winding track. Besides, night had already begun to fall, and no-one would have tried traveling through these mountains after dark.

But things that no-one expected often happened to Bruce Banner.

There, out on the winding almost-road, was a figure in black. From this far away, Bruce couldn’t pick out many more details, but the quiet stirring in his stomach was enough for him to be tense and calculating already, working out as much as he could, projecting things forwards from what limited information he had; he could hide, but that seemed like a coward’s way out, or leave the lamasery somehow, but he didn’t fancy his chances - no, his chances were definitively low and he had already worked it out - in the cold Himalayas for the few days it might take to find somewhere else to stop. _So_ , he thought, watching the figure beckon over a nearby novice and crouch slightly to whisper in their ear, _I’m staying here for now. Get a picture of what’s going on and then plan accordingly_.

Still, best be careful. Taking a last glance at the sky, he uncrossed his now-slim legs and turned away from the vista, wincing as he noticed that one of his legs was numb from sitting on it too long. _Be as calm as you like, but don’t sit wrong._ He remembered someone saying that to him a long time ago, but he almost never thought of her now, and that was for the best. Stretching himself back out, he walked to the back wall of the long cloister-type room, leaning against it for a long while, thinking about other details; he had always enjoyed comparing local plants to types he knew, and when he got lost in it he could spend hours conceptualising the different petals and laying them out side-by-side in his head. It kept him calm, even if the thought that he might not have the simple pleasure of a field of cornflowers again buzzed angrily at the back of his head.

“Doctor Banner?”

Bruce looked up, wringing out his hands to try and stop himself bucking at the unexpected intrusion. He felt bad, too, because he knew that the monks here did not like having to speak English, or at all, but he had not been in this part of the world long enoughto pick up Tibetan beyond basic politeness, which marked him out as ‘the American doctor’. He didn’t like how easy to find that made him, but he liked even less the cultural insensitivity that foisted upon him.

“There is a stranger here for you. They requested you eat with them - the journey here is as you know long.”

Bruce spent a few long seconds looking at the floor, only regarding the bikkhuni from the corner of his eye. She had short hair, and wasn’t looking at him directly, instead watching the last few laypeople return to their dwellings in the settlement outside the monastery - he didn’t know if that was out of courtesy or suspicion. But he knew enough not to bother working it out, and as he raised his hanging head to look at her directly, he cracked what might pass for a smile on a happier man.

“Well then. I suppose I’d better go and see them.”

 

*

 

“And that’s when I said, you should try Paris - everyone looks like they’re going to shoot you there!” The stranger laughed in a way that was obviously forced, the sound of it escaping from a mouth clearly unaccustomed to smiling as the eyes above it abjectly failed to smile back. Bruce looked briefly at his now-clear plate and reached for his cup too, mirroring the person opposite him consciously, keeping everything equal. The cups went back on the table at the same time.

“Dr Banner, this joviality isn’t working for you, is it?” When Bruce stole a glance at the stranger’s face, he saw that they were looking earnestly at him. This was not the usual tactic and it made him nervous. He recrossed his legs the other way and looked steadily at his plate.

“Are you with them? With S.H.I.E.L.D.?” he asked quietly. Usually he didn’t bother - it was less ‘likely’ than ‘certain’ - but he wanted to be sure, because this tall kind figure was not the kind of person that traditionally came after him with an eagle on their shoulder and sophisticated weaponry in their boot. Not that kind of person at all.

“I represent... an interested party.”

“Not S.H.I.E.L.D., then.”

“I suppose not.”

This was interesting. S.H.I.E.L.D had been dogged about pursuing him around the globe, despite what might have been much larger concerns - massive and so far unexplained destruction in New Mexico, Stark Enterprise’s latest PR problems - but since he’d let the other guy run him as far out as this he’d been convinced he’d shaken off his tail. But now he’d grown another one.

“I’m not interested in anything you can offer me,” Banner said definitively, getting up from the low table and dusting crumbs off his trousers. The stranger got up too as Bruce tucked his shirt back in and extended a hand for him to shake.

“My name is Ward, Dr Banner. I’m hear to help you see what’s best for everyone.”  
“What’s best for everyone is that I am a long way from anyone.” Bruce wasn’t so sure that this was true any more, after seeing how long he had been here without problems, and how he’d managed to interact with the bikkhus and bikkhunis without trouble. He was lying to this Ward, as if he’d become an agent himself, an agent of something he wasn’t comfortable with.

“We’re not convinced that’s entirely true.” This... this was new, too. Bruce did not like this one bit. Time to get out of this conversation.

“There is nothing you can offer me that will compel me to change my mind, Mr Ward.”

“That’s not always necessary, Dr Banner. My employer is... extremely committed.”

Bruce looked for just a second at the dark figure set against the ochre background of the wall, taking in the whole scene. It had been a nice time here, just a few weeks, but perhaps... no. _I will never be here again_ , he thought, stepping quickly towards the door.

“It’s not me you have to persuade, Mr Ward. It’s the other guy.”

As Bruce walked as calmly as he could down the corridor, towards the dull light of the evening stars and away from this man, he steeled himself for what he thought might be coming. For who might be coming. He had almost reached the end of the tunnel when he looked behind him to the small room he had left, hearing a reply:  
“We’ve taken precautions for him as well.”

 

*

 

When Bruce came back, he was outside, lying on a rock. If it hadn’t been so bitterly cold, and the sun already set, you might have thought he was sunbathing, he looked so peaceful. Spread out to the sky, he felt almost like it had been no time at all, that he was still on that parapet, the valley still spread out below him as the sun set slowly to his right, impossibly far away, just like everything he had been running from. In the foreground of his mind, nothing had changed, and far away was the same tinkling noise he’d heard so often during his stay here.

_Here, or there?_ he asked himself, sitting up slowly, groggily. His immediate vicinity: more rocks. _This is becoming a trend. Everything he touches turns to rubble_. _Or is it everything_ I _touch?_

He was usually this foggy, after it happened, so he wasn’t alarmed by the large gap in his recent memory. There had been a time where he’d snapped awake afterwards, gasping for air and looking around, fearing the sight of Betty’s corpse on the floor, the blood on his hands. Those days were mostly gone. He didn’t need clarity on what had happened any more; besides, it did him no good. One of the first things he had learnt was that what the other guy did, Bruce couldn’t repair, and trying only complicated things. He was a fragile man, Bruce Banner; an armour made of flesh disguised him, but it didn’t shield him from the hard truths of his life.

Gently, in case any of his limbs were damaged, Bruce rolled first to his left and then to his right, and then back to the left, all the way over. From there, he pushed himself very slowly into a pushup, drew his legs under himself and sat up, cricking his neck slightly. He did not look to be anywhere near the lamasery, as far as he could tell; there was almost no vegetation around him, where the buildings had been surrounded by thin plants strangled by the high altitude. The rocks here were sandy, so he was probably lower down, he thought, remembering the steep climbs for days that had gotten him to that place of calm, and regretting how little time it must have taken to descend again. _No sense in climbing it again_ , he thought. _It would be like waiting till the end of the universe_. And he set off back down the mountain, continuing a journey began for him by someone else, idly solving puzzles at the back of his head, like how many unique words could be made from an imaginary alphabet.

Behind him, way up the mountain, where the rocks where far greyer and starved of oxygen, the lamasery stood still, its residents and denizens still and shocked, groggy against the sight before them. The damage was superficial, really, just minor outbuildings, but they looked like a landing ground for an immense being, the wood and plaster and everything else flattened into unleavened bread. The complex’s main exit, once just a narrow passage, now widened out into a large hole about halfway a long, growing wider at first slowly and then rapidly, until at its apex it was the height of three men, and all of them running headlong away from their lives. 

Standing by one of the crushed outbuilings, someone motioned to someone else, come here, look at this, and a small crowd gathered, hushing themselves as they regarded the figure in front of them, the tall stranger, lying broken and silent in the morning sun. An arm was at a strange angle and the crown bloody. Before anyone else could arrive, the stranger woke suddenly - sat up - stood up - brushed himself down and set off slowly down the mountain. Once he was some distance away, he reached into his dusty jacket and removed a small item, which he held to his face.

“He got away, sir.” Grant took a second to work something out in his head. There were limits to what anyone could do. To what anyone’s body could take. “We’re not going to be able to go after him. He’ll be too far gone by now.” 

Behind him, the monks were returning to their daily routines, and farmers shrugging their shoulders before heading out to find their livestock. Stranger things have happened in places such as these.

Below him, without any fuss, the Hulk and Bruce Banner were moving south.

 

 


End file.
